The disincentives to maintain employment at this company continue.
https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/17/ibm_inventor_reward_program/
7 replies (most recent on top)
IBM - I am out of business and money
No 401k, no patents, no workers…
Worse incentives means fewer employees will go bother with the extra trouble and effort of filing patents for new products, which means IBM will be on the losing end of many patent lawsuits in a few years, with tens or hundreds of millions in potential liabilities.
But by then, the beancounters responsible for this will have moved on.
Brilliant!
This company is total trash
Face it, most software patents are utter garbage.
IBM isn't making much money anymore from its patent IP, so it isn't a surprise that they quit pushing it so much.
IBM's patent program was also partially ruined by wokeness. There was big push to fast track ideas from women and young people in Asia/Africa etc. The result was that a lot of middling ideas were approved for filing patents on. Basically, those folks would do "AI + pick anything from your life = new invention". IBM wasted money rewarding those folks and paying lawyers to file patent applications on those ideas but they did not lead to any solid patents or product / license revenue.
@bui, IBM reached the hall of shame with the bathroom queuing patent.
What a surprise, most IBM patents are absolute cr-p... Employees started to play that game coming up with the most stupidest patents just for financial gain. I would say it is a good thing.